Coyote and Roadrunner—Not exactly

Beep, beep! Maybe it was because we had just spent a weekend with the grandkids, however, the whole scene had a cartoon ambience about it. I was hiking along an unnamed trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park that we call the Ridge Walk. It’s a great hike, off the beaten path except for the occasional dog walker.
I was standing in an open, small meadow-like area examining the sparrows working over the various seed pods. At this time of the year you have to check every little brown bird you see, just in case one will be something special, like a LaConte’s Sparrow, or maybe a Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow.
I noticed a dark, roundish blob moving through the high grass and waited until I could determine it was a Wild Turkey. I don’t know what else it could have been, but you never know. It worked it’s way toward me as I stood as still as possible. In that wild animal way, it somehow sensed my presence and jerked its head up with a surprised look that only a wild turkey can produce.
Off it raced in the direction of the nearest safety of trees. I don’t take offense at this when wild critters dash off as soon as they spot me. Their goal in life is not to be eaten so they err on the side of safety. If we humans adopted that same philosophy, not to be eaten, we’d probably never speak with investment bankers.
Anyway, I watch Tom turkey high-tail it into the woods. Just as I was about to go back to studying the sparrows, I see the turkey coming back at me at a high rate of speed. Only now, close on his heels was a Coyote! About 50 feet into the clearing the Coyote spotted me, screeched to a halt and turned back toward the woods. The turkey, figuring I was less likely to have him for dinner, dashed past within 25 feet, making a beeline for the trees on the other side of the meadow.
All the activity scared up a lot of sparrows and a lot of laughs, for me at least.

A Bird in the Hand …

It was one of those fine, crisp mornings in late September. The kind of day that reminds us of why we live in northeast Ohio. I was hiking along the Hike & Bike Trail in northern Summit County.
An impressive array of birds kept my walking pace to a minimum. I counted eight Eastern Towhees on the move south, chipping as they went as if only one guy had the road map and they needed to stay in contact with him. I saw my first White-crowned Sparrow of the fall season. The first surprise bird of the day, a juvenile Northern Mocking Bird, popped onto a nearby snag. Great spot in this part of the county. I’ve seen the occasional adult in the area, but never a juvenile. Does this mean they’re nesting here about?
The second surprise bird was at the other end of the life spectrum. Lying in the middle of the bike path, toes pointing at the cloudless sky, was what I first took to be a warbler species. Well, at least it’s something to add to my Dead List, I thought. I picked it up and realized I had an identification challenge to deal with. Hmmm. Confusing fall warbler, for sure. After a few minutes of contemplation I bagged the bird for further examination at home.
As I was heading back, I ran into Ann and Dwight Chasar, birders extraordinaire. After a brief chat I pulled out my specimen for an expert opinion. Hmmm, was the consensus. I suggested I back off 25 feet and they look at it through binoculars. This close-up examination was creating confused fall birders. Too much information when you can examine them in the hand, I thought.
We three more-or-less agreed that it’s probably a Red-eyed Vireo. Since Susan volunteers with Andy Jones at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, preparing the museum’s bird-study collection, I’ve turned the bird over to her to give to Andy for the final identification. Dr. Andy goes beyond examining a bird in the hand. He gets into the DNA of the matter.

The Buck Stops …

Actually, the buck stops any place he damn well chooses in October. For example, I was hiking down the northeastern loop of the Carriage Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park this morning, just minding my business and that of any other creature I happened to see.
So this morning I stopped to watch a Pileated Woodpecker destroying a fallen tree. He had the chips flying like he was getting paid for the job. I heard the leaves rustle behind me and over my shoulder saw two does walking, cautiously, in my direction. Around here, whitetail deer are as plentiful as, well, as whitetail deer. It’s not uncommon in a four-mile hike to see a dozen or more deer, grazing or doing whatever deer do when they think no one is watching.
Since no one was listening I said to these two, “’Morning ladies.” They halted, looked at each other, then looked back and to their right.
There stood a huge buck, looking at me. Through my binoculars I counted eight points on each antler. I’m not sure how they count the points when hunters talk about an X-point buck, however, this dude had a rack! I don’t want to get too deeply into personification here, however, I had the distinct feeling this guy was looking at me as if I was looking at his lady friends with something other than a naturalist’s curiosity.
My 2k brain was running the options available to me in case this guy wanted to make a point—or two. Climbing a tree seemed the only thing available. I opted for a stare-down. I may have read somewhere that staring at a wild animal is not the best plan of attack. But, heck, it had worked with squirrels and chipmunks, why not this big guy?
He snorted a couple times and the does changed their trajectory to pass by further to the left. He watched them move on up into the trees, frequently turning to see what I was going to do. Since he looked away first I declared myself the winner of the stare-down and wished him a tolerable day as I walked on down the path.
It’s that time of the year when bucks stop here and there and everywhere.

Listmania

Hi. I’m Clyde and I’m a bird lister. In England we’re called Twitchers.
I’ve tried to break the addiction several times, but things like that Brown Thrasher this morning keep popping up and, well, off I go. Or even worse, like last week while vacationing in Arizona/Utah I saw two life birds. Lifers! How could I not add them to my list?
I almost broke the habit in 2007. Well-meaning friends, essentially non-listers I might note, chide me about how keeping a list of the birds I see interrupts the flow of the experience. It’s seeing, watching, learning, and getting to know the birds better that is what birding should be about.
Hmmm. I’m not looking for a date with any of these chickadees; just another notch on my binocular strap will do.
But in 2007 I upgraded my computer and the program I’ve been using for years was no longer usable. Uggg. Great time to kick the habit friends said. Let it go. Cold turkey is also something to put on your life list.
Okay, said I, I’ll give it a shot. It wasn’t easy. Secretly I surfed the Web looking for a program that might run on my Intel Mac. I found one that sorta worked, but was dreadfully (for me) tough to use. And it required an annual subscription fee.
Based on the rather flimsy excuse that I needed another computer, I ventured over to the dark side and bought a PC-based notebook. Slick little machine—and I could get some birding software …
And since I had the software for the little notebook, why not add it to the iMac since it has that capability?
I sunk deeper and deeper to where now I’m at the point of waiting for some new software to arrive since I found the previous program cumbersome. And besides, this new program has a module that allows me to keep records on my PDA, then download them to my computer! I’ll be listing away and people will think I’m trying to look like a teenager and am just texting the person standing next to me. Cool.
I realize listing has become another life-long habit—like always for the Democrat, so I needed the perfect zinger for my friends when they see me sneaking my notepad out of my jacket for no other reason than to note that Swainson’s Thrush singing in the bush. How about, “Hey, it’s like golf. If you don’t keep score yer only practicing.”

Earthworm Migration

Do earthworms migrate? Good question. Okay, not as pressing (for some) as to whether we should reward the people who bungled us into this current financial crises with $700 billion or some lesser amount, but an important question nonetheless.
I’ll have to ask our naturalist buddy, Wendy. One takeaway lesson you always get when hiking with Wendy is to look down as much as you look up. (For more about earthworms and virtually everything else outside the four walls of you life, check out www.naturenuts.com.)
I was minding my own, and the rest of Nature’s business this morning, hiking the Old Carriage Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I watched a scene straight out of JJ Audubon, or maybe Robert Bateman) as a family of four Pileated Woodpeckers hammered and chatted away on a backlit tree. I helped several Carolina Wrens, Blackcapped Chickadees and their associated Tuffted Titmouse friends make enough noise to wake an owl or whatever was in the bush that had them all upset. I never saw the reason for their pique. They all took off and I assume it was a snake.
After a couple miles on the trail I turned uphill and realized there was a herd (I don’t know what else to call it) of either big earthworms or small night crawlers) heading downhill. Hundreds. I bobbed and weaved and tried not to step on any of the slow movers. It was a shady spot on the trail. The ground was so dry it had cracked in spots.
Now my basic instinct as a fisher told me to grab as many of these critters as possible. Then I remembered I was a fly fisher, often a dry-fly fisher, and live-bait fishing was a thing I was suppose to disparage. But these were really nice, juicy looking worms …
I posted myself behind a tree to see if any of the birds in the forest were interested. No takers. So what in the world, at least this part of the world, were these worms doing?
Another unanswered question and one of the reasons we keep going back into the woods.

Bringing It All Back Home

Having survived the crowds last week at the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park on our Great Western Swing Scouting Trip, I decided to take a walk around my own backyard today.
In my case, the backyard is the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Thanks taxpayers. The great thing about hitting the trails in the park on a Wednesday is that there’s virtually no one else around. You get to see what a park is all about—a place for the animals, not the humans. I walked nearly two miles on the first trail before I saw two people coming the other way, deep in discussion about eating fat and why it’s good for you. I wanted to tell them to check that theory with the chickadees who were also deep in their discussion—probably about the quality of sunflower seeds this year.
Further along the trail I crossed over a stream (okay, a tiny creek) that I’ve seen many time. Only now it was crowded with fish. As a fly fisher I should be able to identify these critters. All I know is they were not trout. I think they were black-nosed dace. There were hundreds of them. I realized they were probably always there, except when there was heavy traffic on the trail.
As I neared where I planned to take a shortcut and head for home, I looked into the remnants of the Ohio-Erie canal. I realized the moss-covered bumps on the logs were really turtles. From one spot I counted 56 of various sizes from ravioli to basketball. All uniformly green with duckweed on their heads, necks and backs. For five minutes or so I discussed choosing vice presidential running mates with the turtles. You can do that sort of thing when no one else is around.
Heading up the steep slope that would lead me back to civilization, I spooked three white-tail deer that had bedded down for the day. The buck, still in velvet, was not happy. He snorted and pawed the ground, just to let me know who was boss of this patch.
Somehow the hill had gotten steeper than I remembered and during my second rest stop, Blue Jays rousted a Cooper’s Hawk that flew straight at me, eye level. It was probably my imagination, but I swear I felt the wind from its wings as it passed overhead.
There’s a reason national parks carry that designation. They all have something to offer you’ll find no place else. Ours might not have mile-deep canyons or soaring hoodoos. We have just basic peace and tranquility, especially on a Wednesday morning.

Click, Click, Click

I’m currently sharing a room with a click beetle. The only reason I know it’s a click beetle is because our naturalist friend, Wendy, told me about click beetles a couple years ago. Now I can impress others with my vast knowledge of insects. I thought those clicky things in the night were frogs of some sort. Not so.
Click, click, click
Now, I’ve never seen a click beetle and this one is no exception. I should look up his picture on the Web so I know what I’m dealing with here.
How he (I assume it’s a he because it’s sneaky and noisy) got into my hotel room I know not. It’s okay. He has stayed in the same spot for three days now, moving back and forth someplace in the drapery track. It’s a friendly sound. Makes me feel like I’m out of doors.
As luck would have it, I’m in Phoenix where it’s so hot you can not go outside. You live in the air conditioned bubble and bitch about the heat with other people who don’t go outside, either. So bringing in a bit of the outside is welcome.
I’ve managed to get out a do a bit of birding in the early mornings when things cooled to 90 degrees (click, click, click) and the birds head for water spots.
It’s interesting that I’m back in Arizona at the near-end of the south-bound migration. In May we were out here for the north-bound birds. I’m probably seeing the kids of the adults I saw four short months ago.
Not much action. A few Black-chinned Hummingbirds moving through have been a treat. Plenty of Verdins around, a bird we did not see in the spring.
Probably the highlight of the week has been the largest covey of Gamble’s Quail I’ve ever seen. There are easily 50 birds in this group, ranging in size from golf-balls with toothpick legs, on up to full adult. They scamper ahead of me as I walk (against the rules I proudly add) the golf cart paths at this luxury resort in Scottsdale.
They remind me of characters in silent movies that never have the smarts to get off the tracks as a train is bearing down on them. Of course, if the quail, like the guy in the silent movie, did scamper to the side and into the bushes, it would take a lot of drama out of my life.
Click, click, click.

A Good Omen, Perfect Punctuation

We were doing our best to burn off the day. The sun was doing its part. The sky had turned more shades of yellow-red than battered left over Olympic banners. The burning question, not to be confused with burning issues, was whether we’d make it to the pond before dark? And if we did, would the birds still be there?
In this case the birds were three Wood Storks, a species more at home in the swamps of Florida than the wetlands of mid-Ohio. How did they get here? They have wings so I guess that answers the question. And they were juveniles. Put teenagers together with transportation and you’re liable to get anything.
The first good sign we had was a bird that stumped Susan and I for a few seconds. When you’ve been fortunate to bird around the globe as we have, we expect the unexpected in unsuspecting places. But near Zanesville, Ohio, an all-black crow-sized bird with bright white tail feathers gives you pause.
After a bit of lip flapping and firm knowledge that we weren’t slowing down our mission—to see the Wood Storks—we quickly realized we had just seen an American Crow with white tail feathers. It was one of those birding things that make you say, “humph.”
Driving through the wonderful habitat of decidedly rural Coshocton County, we had to stop to check out some great shorebird habitat. Sure enough, a Willet was feeding on the far side of a pond. Belted Kingfishers were diving from several trees; a House Wren popped up to see what we were doing; Cedar Waxwings were hawking bugs; and after a bit of effort we coaxed a Nashville Warbler out of the bushes.
On to the storks. As we topped a rise in the road we first spotted some humans, binoculars and scopes in hand, gazing down a slope into a small oxbow of a pond. The three storks appeared bleached white against the darkening foliage. The only thing that seemed to upset them was a possessive Great Blue Heron. Some minor squabbling ensued. The storks bought off the heron with a fish or two and the critters settled down.
As we were packing to leave, Vernon Miller, the Amish man who found the birds a week earlier happened by. He proudly told the story for the umpteenth time of how he spotted the birds, called a friend to confirm the identification, and how the friend posted the information to the Ohio Birds Listserv (www.ohiobirds.org).
It was nearly dark when we stopped to find an errant water bottle that had rolled under the seats. Susan found the bottle and shouted look! As a birder you don’t ask where or why or what. You just point your nose in the direction of the person making the call. An adult Bald Eagle swooshed over our heads. Perfect ending to a perfect day.

Seeing is Believing

We stood, gazing back in time at the stars all around us. We were on the edge of the universe. It was a place astronomers had gathered for a half century to peer into the past, hoping to predict the future. And while Kitt Peak, Arizona is hallowed ground for astronomers, it is also a marvelous spot for birders.
Susan and I were with a group of like-minded individuals from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. We were in Southeast Arizona to explore the heavens as well as the flora and fauna. Among our leaders were Andy Jones, curator of ornithology, Joe DeRocher, astronomer, and Naturalist Harvey Webster. Trust me, nothing got by us, from the rings of Saturn to the rings on the neck of the Elegant Trogon, to the rings on the tail of the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.
What struck me as we looked out across the endless miles of space and land was how birding is connected to so many other aspects of natural history. Another thing that struck me was how people asked, “What do you expect to get from this trip?”
Expectations when you go birding (or fishing for that matter) can often lead to bitter disappointment. Better to set goals, like, don’t get hurt, or find the Flame-colored Tanager. Don’t expect not to get hurt. Don’t expect to see the tanager. The expectation, if there has to be one, is to see what nature has to offer.

Beginner's Luck

Let’s see, when last I left my blog I was looking at fish in a stream in California. As a friend and reader reminded me not too long ago, “You haven’t written anything for more than a year.”
True enough, and while blogging can be a mixed blessing (sort of like children, or being born good looking instead of rich) it is fun. Now I’m back.
My problem (Old people have problems. Young people have issues.) was that shortly after that trip to California in 2007, my world began to tilt. Then, on the night of a blue moon in May 2007, the unthinkable happened and things got topsy turvey. While trying to find the right words to tell my boss I was quitting, he called and offered me a promotion! Talk about a conundrum. I made the big error of not asking, “how much more money?” before I said “yes.” I promised him a year to see how it would all work out.
Now, closing in 14 months, I finally have my beak far enough above water to be able to take a breath—and get back to blogging. It’ll take a while to get back into my stride, so hang with my faithful readers. Thanks for asking.
And to sort of pick up where I left off—with fishing—a short note about a trip to the stream a couple days ago. Fishing buddy Tom (retired and looking for more playmates) has been talking about chasing some smallmouth bass at a secret spot on the Cuyahoga River. Anyone who has not been left mentally impaired by those great days of the late 1960s remembers the Cuyahoga as the river that caught on fire. There were songs about it; now there’s even a microbrewery beer available celebrating that infamous day of environmental history.
In any case, we’d be fishing far up stream from the historical footnote place. (In truth, the river runs quite clean these days, fodder for another blog.)
Tom and I, and his long-time buddy Jon hit the stream early in the morning. Not so early for a guy who still has a real job, however, it was early for those retirees. The guys gave me the lay of the land, stream, actually. My experience with other fishers, me included, is to put the new guy off in some direction so as not to interrupt the real fishing spots. I just wrote it off to paying my dues. Jon headed up stream at a pace. Tom selected a little island to fish around, and I waded downstream to a likely looking spot. Karma was with the nubie. Before Tom had a fly on the water, and while he was still within ear and eye shot, I was hooked up with the first smallmouth of the day.
Right, beginners luck after about 40 years of fly fishing.

Virtual Fishing

Many fly fishers like me, those of us who practice the art and discipline of catch-and-release fishing, often say, “Well, it’s not always about catching fish.” We usually say that on days when we’ve been skunked.
Then there are the days when we catch and release a lot of fish, yet never wet a line. I had one of those kinds of days this past week while chasing birds in the Los Padres National Forest in California.
Los Padres is one of the few places where you might catch a glimpse of the endangered California Condor. We didn’t. We were, however, feeling lucky; Susan, her sister and I. We had stopped to look over a particularly attractive scene (those two are both artists so every bend in the road harbors opportunity) and got great day-time looks of a Western Screech-owl, Acorn Woodpecker and a California Quail that popped up on a fencepost to see what the ruckus was all about and let us take its picture.
But that was birding and this is supposed to be about fishing. Late in the day we stopped at another picturesque spot where water was seeping across the road. In an area that has not seen rain in eight months, any wet spot attracts birds. This spot turned out to be a classic mountain trout stream. While Susan and Peg walked through the woods discussing angles and the quality of light, I stood behind a tree and watched the water. Sure enough, I saw movement. I pointed this out to them and we all enjoyed spotting fish in a stream so narrow you could step across it.
They moved on and I decided to fish for a while. It was a challenging spot: narrow water protected by branches. No casting here. Crystal clear water with bright sun casting shadows. There were spots where I might dangle a fly in, however, and let it drift …
They were rainbows. More than a dozen of them worked in the small stretch of stream I checked. Further down stream I found a couple more pools and could see fish working in them, too. To the untrained eye there were no fish. Then a movement so quick you’re unsure it even happened, made you pause. From behind a rock a small dark bullet moved to grab an unseen insect. They weren’t big fish, maybe a couple of 12-inchers in the lot. What they were feeding on remains a mystery. Bugs were hatching, occasionally, and the fish were feeding half way down in the water column, which in that spot was about three feet deep.
So, a really small nymph, a bead-head something maybe, unweighted, set adrift down either side of the stream might work. There was some undercutting of the banks and those tree roots would be a problem. That could be overcome if I kept the line just a bit to the right of that rock …
And by the time the two artists had finished painting their great landscapes, in their--minds--I had caught and released a dozen trout, in mine.

Tunnel of Love

I thought the best way to celebrate President’s Day might be to watch birds at my feeder this morning. Actually, it’s the best way to celebrate the start of any day. Plenty of metaphorical things about birds, feeding at the public trough (to mix a metaphor) and cooperation among species, to go along with a day of celebration for politicians. We celebrate virtually everything and everyone in this country. Soon we’ll have a national holiday for NASCAR drivers. Only kids south of the Mason and Dixon line will get the day off from school, however.
But then, I digress. Back to feeding at the public trough. We’ve had a Red Squirrel terrorizing the birds at our feeder ever since fall. I was hoping this guy, and his new-found-friend, would hibernate and let the birds eat in peace. Not so.
I glanced up from the local snewspaper every so often and there he’d be, sucking up the free chow. And while he is kind of cute, he is still a freeloader, not unlike some poilticians. I realized that every now and again he was also in his favorite tree, yet there were no tracks in the snow. On closer inspection, I saw that he had burrowed a tunnel from the base of the tree to the base of the bird feeder. No clumping through 18 inches of snow for this guy. It was really cool: grab some seeds, zip through the tunnel and eat from a spot where he could warn away those winged interlopers.
As I finished the paper’s section on what passes for arts and entertainment in this area, I noticed that Red’s friend, Stumpy (because she has only half a tail) was examining the tree-end of the tunnel while Red was feeding his face at the other. At about the time Red turned to go back to his tree, stumpy headed into the tunnel to see where it led.
Midway in the diffused light of the tunnel an explosion of snow, squirrel fur and sunflower seeds erupted. A lot more chatter than I thought possible from two little animals could be heard inside the house.
There was a lot of grabbing, jumping and flashing of teeth before the pair settled on the deck railing to discuss what had happened. I noticed they were sitting closer than usual so I assume this close encounter of the furred kind was not all negative.

Star Light, Moon Bright

Certainly one of the challenges of having astronomy as a hobby here in northeast Ohio is the weather. Winter skies are often clear—the more exciting for viewing. They can also be bitterly cold.
After plenty of warm, cloudy nights and a nearly planet-less November, then only limited action in December, amateur astronomers have to be ready for anything. The end of January and early February has seen the return of the Big Eight (and the planet formerly known as Pluto), along with some great moon sightings. And the outstanding winter constellations.
This morning was one of those really great opportunities for sky watching. Except for the facts that the temperature was three below zero—and I had to work my day job. Ug.
Heading toward the office an hour or so before sunrise, I could not help but stop along the way and just take in the spectacular scene. Much to the chagrin of a driver behind me (who must have been a banker or something, eager to get to the office and count his money), I pulled off the road opposite an open field. Often we watch Wild Turkeys, Red-tailed Hawks and White-tailed deer feeding there. This morning the field was a sea of shadows tossed haphazardly on the snow by the 18-day-old moon; lopsided and bright—like some people I know.
The view to the southwest showed me that Saturn was leading Luna down the ecliptic path as if he knew where he was going. A couple days earlier they had risen nearly hand-in-hard when she was full and he was in a slightly different orbit. Behind her, off to the southeast, Jupiter, trailed by the warrior Mars, flashed brighter than the traffic helicopter heading off to the morning’s first road disaster. Jupiter’s solid, steady light was a bright, cold blue, belying the plant’s warmer tones when seen through a telescope. I tried to imagine the positions of her four visible moons. Would the great red spot be visible this morning?
Bright Sirius was gone from my sky. I hungered for what the Orion cluster must look like in this clear sky and envied people in the west now looking up.
I read somewhere that the while the moon’s gravity is strong enough to pull oceans out of shape, it really doesn’t have any impact on humans. We’re too small, even though we are mostly water.
Bunk! The longer I stood there in the diminishing moonlight, looking up as more and more stars became visible to my widening pupils, the stronger I could feel Luna’s seductive pull, her whisper encouraging me to move in the opposite direction of my office.

No Contest

As soon as I saw the competitors I knew how the contest was going to end. And it was not going to be pretty, either.
An American Goldfinch, in this corner, was calmly taking niger seed from the tube feeder. The single-digit temperatures did not seem to diminish its appetite, although there was no others of its kind in sight.
In that corner, about 10 feet away, perched Mr. Cooper’s Hawk. He, too, was looking for lunch and the goldfinch seemed to be his meal of choice.
When the goldfinch saw, or sensed, the presence of the hawk, it froze. The hawk, and I noodled this out by moving around inside the house to check his sight lines, was unsure if there was a bird on the feeder or not. The wind would ruffle the finch’s feathers and the hawk would perk up. The tube feeder, however, was swaying in the breeze, just enough to create a bit of uncertainty.
The goldfinch held its ground. No move is a good move in a situation like this. The standoff continued for several minutes. The hawk would occasionally turns its attention elsewhere until finally it launched itself from the branch and rocketed off in the direction of a flock of starlings.
Goldfinch wins!

Winter Birding

Winter birding in northeast Ohio can be thrilling in terms of seeing species you’d otherwise have to travel to the Arctic to see. Or it can be so deadly dull you’re better off just looking out your front window. Most days fall somewhere in between.
This weekend was one of those strange, in between days. With friends Karin and Pat, Susan and I made our annual winter pilgrimage to Killdeer Plains Wildlife Management Area. We go there at this time of year to see the invasion of northern owl species, primarily, and other birds that can be seen at no other time or place—except the open tundra of Canada.
The fact that the trip also includes fabulous homemade soups, breads and desserts is not overlooked; maybe even an incentive.
An omen of what lay ahead was our spotting of a Turkey Vulture only a few miles east of Hinckley, Ohio. It is common knowledge that the Turkey Vultures are lured back to this region on March 15 each year with aromas rising from grilled sausages and pancakes. Some people have twisted that around to think the feast is to celebrate the birds’ return. Not true. In this case the tail wags the dog.
So there it was, January 27 and we bagged our first Turkey Vulture of the year. Not an Arctic bird, for sure. Things picked up as we neared Killdeer Plains and shunted off to the north to search the open farm fields. With the wind blowing up a wind chill factor off the charts we spotted hundreds of Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs, true northern birds. Things were heating up. Longspurs are curious, sparrow-sized birds with short legs and an incredible array of shades of brown in their coloring. Their visiting our windswept barren corn fields is like us going to Florida for a break from the weather.
What had started as a slow birding day began to taper off about the time we entered Killdeer Plains. The large raptors we had hoped to see had yet to arrive. We were treated to an amazing display of affection by a pair of Bald Eagles. When these big birds get it on, they get it on! Right there on the ice with hundreds of Canada Geese watching.
We counted about 70 Tundra Swans on the open water of one of the area's larger lakes. Watching swans fly is an amazing sight. As they came in for a landing the birds would talk with each other, turn and feather their wings and stall in mid air, then drop softly into an open spot among their kind.
We had all but given up on spotting an owl this trip. Sometimes you get lucky and see five or six species of owls in one day. This was not one of those days. Making one last drive past ideal Short-eared Owl habitat in lighting so poor we were unsure, at first, what was moving to our left, we saw a Short-eared Owl rise from the ground and hover-hunt over the grassy pasture. We stopped the car in the middle of the road and jumped out (I think it was in that order) to get a better view. The pudgy 15-inch body and 38-inch wings make this bird an unlikely candidate for graceful flight. It’s flight pattern is often described as moth-like. We watched this animal, no more than 30 feet away, rise and fall in the wind; diving at what it hoped would be dinner. It turned and pirouetted on its wingtips, paying no attention to us. I was reminded of the admonition, dance like no one is watching. As it moved ahead it barked to its neighbors whom we could not see. Suddenly there were a half dozen owls rising from the ground, moving in all directions.
As the owls' barking faded into the night we forgot we had seen only 33 other species this day. It will always be remembered as another great winter birding day in northern Ohio.

Blowin’ in the Wind Part II

Last May I wrote, with great exuberance, about the fancy new wind turbine on Cleveland’s lakefront, pumping megawatts of power into the Great Lakes Science Center. I’ve had a remote connection to some folks monitoring the site for dead birds and the reports, albeit secondhand, have all been positive. No birds have been whacked by the props.
Then last night I heard Mark Shieldcastle speak. Mark is a wildlife biologist with the Crane Creek Wildlife Research Station out near Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. By the end of Mark’s hour-long presentation, me, and a lot of the other left-leaning tree huggers were having second, maybe third thoughts about wind generated electricity.
Wind turbines, touted as a green alternative, ain’t so green it seems. First, they’re notoriously inefficient. Their efficiency rating is about 15%. Nuclear power is about 85%. And they’re not so animal friendly, either. Had I thought through the scenario, I might have figured out why people are not finding dead birds at the base of the wind turbines in this area. The example Mark used was a Golden-crowned Kinglet weighing five-grams, traveling 10 mph. In the dark it meets a turbine prop traveling at 150 mph. The area enclosed by the circumference of those spinning blades equals about four acres! How much of that bird would be left and in what direction should we look? Oh.
The proposal that is giving people sweaty palms here in Cleveland is the installation of turbines out in the lake. Listen closely and you can hear peoples’ lips smacking. As Mark points out, if we can’t find dead birds on land, what chance would we have of finding them in the lake?
This area of the planet is critical to bird migration. It’s one of the best spots anywhere for warbler migration in spring. It’s about the only spot on Earth where the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler has been seen off its breeding grounds in Michigan. And while birds often fly higher than the 400-foot-high or 600-foot-high towers that are proposed, they to land and take off with frequency in the lake and around the lake shore.
Information on bird strikes against wind turbine blades is minimal at best. Altamont, California, has some good data because the turbines there are killing hundreds of large raptors with frightening regularity. A mystery killing by wind turbines is happening to bat species, says Mark. Thousands of bats are being killed by the wind farm project in the Appalachians of West Virginia. For some unknown reason, bats are attracted to the spinning blades. They’ve also found dead bats at the site of Ohio’s only wind farm, in Bowling Green.
A recent article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer quotes Amy Gomberg, environmental advocate for Environment Ohio in Columbus, as saying, “I don’t believe wind developers would put up wind turbines where they would have a negative impact on birds. It would make them look bad.”
Oh, my. Wake up! Big Wind is lining up at the government trough just like Big Oil, Big Guns and Big Auto have done for years. Without more solid science regarding the impact of wind turbines on wildlife, Big Wind is going to create a giant sucking sound heard throughout northeast Ohio and wherever else it can site its wind farms. And only when pigs fly, and get sliced up in the turbine blades, will they care about looking bad.

Patience is a Virtue

Sometimes it’s easy to unwittingly step briskly on the path toward disaster. At other times it’s a more casual stroll. As with most unpleasant experiences, this potential disaster had its humorous side. Whether it was humorous, of course, depends on your state of mind at the time, and whether you had committed the error.
The lines at the Southwest Airlines ticket counter in Chicago, the other day, were so long it was hard to imagine the airline had enough planes in its fleet to handle all of these would-be passengers. Slowly we crept along, like cattle moving to slaughter; or skiers moving to the lift chairs, similar experiences for some.
An apparent supervisor was doing her best to direct people. Those with only luggage to check, go right. No, my right, your left. No luggage to check? Go left. No, my left, your right. And those who weren’t sure if they were even supposed to be at the airport, wait over there. A thankless and endless job. She managed a relatively cheerful smile throughout the chore while making drastic pleas for help on her walkie-talkie.
Help arrived in the form of a breathless young man who had the expression of a deer caught in the headlights. The supervisor, while dealing with irate passengers, directed the young man to rearrange the black coral belts that kept us in our lanes as we moved laboriously toward the frenzied people at the ticket counter. She gave him instructions without making eye contact. He looked at her as if she were speaking a language he was hearing for the first time. Eventually, she got to the end of her sentence. The guy was so confused he had ask her, again, what he was supposed to do.
Finally he got it and moved to action. Bobbing and weaving, ducking beneath the lines that held us all in check, the young fellow worked his way into the middle of the mess. His goal, I think, was to create two major streams feeding toward the ticket counters. He began retracting this strap and extending that one. He compartmentalized, expanded, eliminated and created with the speed of a man on a mission from god.
People stopped moving forward, turned left or right depending where he had established inlet or outlet. What had been only confusion now degenerated into chaos.
In less than three minutes this whirling dervish managed to bottle up the whole lot of us. It was soon apparent that no one could get to the ticket counters.
The supervisor, meanwhile, had kept her back to the action. She soon realized that the line was getting longer, not shorter as she had hoped. And what had been only a murmmer of conversation coming from the passengers, was now reaching a decibel level that might concern even OSHA. As the hapless young man created the last barrier he was confused beyond hope. He stood still, hands in his packets, looking hopefully in the direction of the supervisor.
Mob-rule began to take over. People nearest the connectors of the retracting barrier straps began unhooking them and move in the general direction of the ticket counters. Before long, passengers had reestablished straight lines and the maze created by the young fellow was a matter of jokes. Order emerged from chaos. To the supervisor’s credit, I noticed she was quietly explaining to the young man, this time using hand gestures and getting affirmative nods from him, how to establish a corral, not a maze.

Watch Your Back

Bird watching is about more than watching birds. It’s about observing bird behavior as well. And of all the bird behaviors we could list, sex and eating are two activities at the top of every birder’s list.
This is about eating. I was driving north on MLK Boulevard in Cleveland this morning and some motion off to my left caught my eye. A Red-tail Hawk was cruising along next to me, about door-handle level, 25 feet away. I was going about 30 mph and this guy was keeping pace. Not even puffing as far as I could tell. He was focused on a huge flock of plump American Robins feeding in an open spot, surrounded by some sort of berry-bearing tree. The robins were flanked by Fox Squirrels, also enjoying the fruit treat.
I slowed as I saw the hawk put down its landing gear, talons wide open. A fraction of a second before it could nab an orange-breasted morsel, the flock exploded in all directions!
The huge bird banked sharply to its right and clamped down on one of the fuzzy spectators that had been up on its haunches like it was watching a sporting event. Full power climb, squirrel wiggling (and probably screeching) without missing a beat, the hawk headed off to brunch.
I replayed the event in my mind on my way in to the office (more fun than thinking about what would try to eat me when I got there) and have come to the conclusion that the squirrel was the number-one target. The faint toward the robins was all part of the plan. Cool move.

So, Where Are the Birds?

While our compilers digest the numbers from the Annual Audubon Christmas Count, we can all ponder the fate of birds this winter. At our Audubon chapter’s chili dinner I spoke with some of the other territory leaders and everyone seemed to have the same question: Where were the birds, today? Weather was mild, by count-day standards. No snow. Birds could scatter and find plenty of natural food.
And there’s another reason why birds were missing, at least in my area, which includes Waterworks Park in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. One of my ace counters found a spot in the park where wrong-headed, misguided individuals have created a feral-cat community.
As he says, “The cats are fat, comfortable and dry. ‘Compassionate’ citizens supply them with food, shelter and care. The cats live in a little compound of pet cages, plastic tarps and food bowls in a shrubby area near a parking lot on the Fit-Trail.”
He adds that the colony in Waterworks Park is the best organized he’s ever seen. “Someone was always in attendance with them when I was there. There is more than one ‘good Samaritan.’ They bring bags of food, check on the cats' welfare, etc. I counted about five cats, but I suspect there are more lurking in the brush.”
The American Bird Conservancy estimates that as many as one billion birds are killed each year by domestic and feral cats ... If you have a cat keep it indoors. Tell your neighbors to do the same. And if you know other kind-hearted, ill-advised, injudicious folks who create these disgusting cat hobo jungles, tell them to get some goldfish for pets and leave the cats to the Red-tailed Hawks.

Foul Weather Friends

High winds and torrential rains this morning kept me off the stream so I opted to do some of the chores I had been putting off for a rainy day. Since I knew there’d a lot of walking through puddles of parking lots, I dug out my foul-weather shoes that I left in the garage to be cleaned—last August I think. Today’s rain would do the job I had neglected.
I’ve camped and lived in enough places where little critters—particularly those that can inflict disproportionate pain—get into shoes that have been unoccupied for more than 24 hours. As is my habit, I knocked the heel of the shoe on the garage floor before inserting my foot.
Ha! Somebody’s stash of sunflower seeds had found its way into my L.L. Bean shoes. Forty-eight seeds, still in the husk. A quick check of the right shoe revealed another 63 seeds.
So, the mystery: Whose seeds are these, how did the critter get into my garage, and will it come back? The answer to the first two questions is chipmunk. The answer to the third is, probably not. Those little clowns should be deep in their burrows now. The exceptionally warm weather has keep them above ground longer than usual, however, today, our first real taste of northeast Ohio winter, probably has some little guy dreaming of 100 or more seeds he hid somewhere, but just can’t remember where.
In winter, chipmunks and humans alike, seem to survive on dreams in our separate hibernations.